8 November 2007

Job seekers don’t respect recruitment agencies and the guarantee period

One of the problems facing recruitment agencies is that job-seekers in the IT industry jump from job to job, sometimes ignoring the ‘guaranteed’ employment period when starting with a new employer, leaving recruiters in an invidious position, facing financial costs and reputation damage.

So said Karen Geldenhuys, MD of Pretoria-based IT recruitment agency, Abacus Recruitment.

“When a recruitment agency places a candidate the agreement is that that candidate will stay in the employment of the employer for a guaranteed period of time. This agreement is not legally binding, but it is an ethical and contractual understanding. But, increasingly, IT candidates are leaving their new employer before the guaranteed period is up. This means that the recruitment agency must find a replacement candidate without charging the client, or employer, any additional recruiting fees. Besides the time and cost wasting factors, this is also impacting on the image and reputation of recruiters – even though it essentially not their fault. It is becoming a serious problem in the IT industry,” she said.

Geldenhuys said that over the last three years her company had detected a 300% in this “short-term job hopping tendency”.

Currently, it is a generally accepted norm that IT workers stay between 18 months to 24 months at one job, and then move on. “This is the nature of the IT industry. IT skills are in demand because of the skills shortage and the better qualified candidates are generally easily able to find new employment, at higher wages. But there is very little loyalty in this type of scenario.”

Very often, said Geldenhuys, candidates who have found new work leave their CVs circulating in the marketplace, “just in case they receive a better offer”. “We often ask candidates to withdraw their CVs from circulation when we place them at a company. They generally say they will, but, in some instances, they just don’t. But, legally, there is really nothing we can do about it. It boils down to ethics.

“But the lack of commitment from IT workers towards employers and recruitment agencies is now becoming rather worrying.”

Reasons cited for the high level of “job hopping” includes:

  • the skills shortage and the fact that good IT workers have a lot of choices;

  • often the pace of companies is too fast, or too slow, for IT workers; and

  • employers are often not attentive, and do not give enough training and support to new staff during the critical first three month employment period.


    • Geldenhuys said this kind of “short term staff churn” is not good for the industry as a whole. “It disrupts the smooth flow of business, it disrupts projects and it costs recruitment agencies in terms of costs and reputation.”